Do I need to use distilled water to me hooch?

[u/AromaticWolverine314]

Basically I'm making hooch but people say I need distilled water is this true? I currently don't have any so I'm boiling water to remove chlorine but I wanna be sure.

[u/nxtstp]

Depends on how much chlorine is in your local water supply. Plain tap water works for me but it’s very weakly chlorinated where i live.

[u/NormanCocksmell → u/nxtstp]

So… toilet water is fine too if it’s not too chlorinated?

[u/MushySunshine → u/NormanCocksmell]

If you wanna i guess

[u/Timetmannetje]

If your tap water is safe & good to drink it's good to hooch.

[u/Atenos-Aries]

I use spring water from gallon bottles because my local tap water sucks. If your tap water is good for you to drink, use that. Use a filter of some sort if you’d like. As long as the water is clean, you can use pretty much whatever.

[u/yazzledore]

Nah, boiling it for 15-20 as you’re doing should remove the chlorine and kill any bacteria from the pipes. There might be other minerals in there that affect the taste or smth but I wouldn’t stress about it at all.

[u/One_Hungry_Boy]

You can use a Britta filter for your tap water if you want, but it will be fine either way. Chlorine and chloramines can affect the flavor to some minor extent.

[u/capt42069]

Is toliet water distilled? Your good to go

[u/AromaticWolverine314 → u/capt42069]

On second thought I don't mind boiling water lol

[u/MajorHubbub]

IIRC humans can taste chlorine in really small parts per million and it makes beer taste weird, so don't use bleach to sanitise

[u/L0ial]

When I started I used gallons of spring water for everything. Now I just use filtered tap water and I haven’t noticed any difference. If I didn’t filter it though you’d be able to taste the chlorine.

[u/120z8t]

No. I would never use distilled water. Spring water will be best for brewing. Distilled is striped of all its minerals. minerals can help the yeast and add mouth feel to the brew.

[u/Xal-t]

Never had a problem with tap water, with any ferments (full grains beer, kimchi, lacto ferments, kombucha, hooch, etc)

[u/CattyNick]

If you wanted to get rid of chlorine the lazy way something I learned from the aquarium hobby is to take whatever amount of water you wanted de-chlorinated and leave it out with an open top for 24 hours.

Idk how it works but as long as there is air moved on the top of the water it de-chlorinates it.

[u/empireback]

I’ve been making homemade beer and mead for a few years and I’ve only ever used tap water. Would it taste better with bottled water? Probably. But I’m cheap and lazy. Also don’t used distilled water. You want some of the natural nutrients in the water and distilled removes those.

[u/eyetracker]

You're asking the sub where someone probably once asked whether you can make wine from hot dogs, nobody uses distilled here. But even "serious" brewers don't use distilled, just filtered.

[u/Ok_Duck_9338]

If you want to add pre formulated salts for a particular effect, it provides a blank canvas. So my guess is that you're generalizing from something like a Gose Beer. That and your possessive pronoun.

[u/Party_Stack]

No. If anything I’d use tap water before distilled water since tap water at least contributes some amount of nutrition in the form of minerals.

People say it depends on the chlorine content in the water but honestly you’re probably fine. I ferment with water from a dirty bathroom sink (granted I live in Washington so it’s very clean water) and have never had issues.